the next day, when Burfield confided 

 to me that he knew where there were 

 some ' Dead-trees ' (not dead trees) 

 that could be examined without fear 

 of detection, I preferred to borrow the 

 doctor's wife's bicycle. 



Dead-trees? Very likely you know 

 what I did not until I saw for myself, 

 that the Asrapako, in common with 

 several Indian tribes, place their dead 

 in trees instead of in the ground. As 

 the trees are very scarce in that arid 

 country, and only to be found in gullies 

 and along the banks of the Little Big 

 Buck River, nearly every tree has its 

 burden of one or more swathed-up 

 bodies bound to its branches, half hid- 

 den by the leaves, like great cocoons 

 — most ghastly reminders of the end 

 of all human things. 



It was to a cluster of these ' dead- 



